Defective
by TimeTotsintheTARDIS
Summary: Zim and Gaz are more alike that they care to admit. Who is Gir, really, and why is Zim a defect? ZAGR. CURRENTLY BEING RENOVATED


Invader Zim

Title: Defective

Chapters:

Genre:

Characters: Zim and Gaz M.

Summary (from list):

Summary:

Author: DaughteroftheFifthHouse

Started: Unknown

**THIS IS A RE-WRITE OF CHAPTER ONE.**

Err, sorry. ." I realize it's been a while, but hopefully… My style has improved, at least a bit. I apologize, but I couldn't just leave you hanging. Be warned, though, I'm on a Doctor Who tic at the moment and might either use an excess of British words that really have no place in this fic, or be a while longer in updating, since I'm currently on a multi-chaptered story about my favorite time-traveling madman. Check it out, if you're interested. Link in my profile, titled, "Something Space Filler." Ta!

Chapter One

_Defective. All for… Nothing._ His hands gripped the table in front of him for support._ Makes sense,_ a vicious voice, a new one, taunted. _You're not any good. How did you ever pass that test? _it scorned, biting into his mind like venom and spreading.

_Of course it's not true,_ he growled in response, his antennae lying flat in anger. _They're testing me again, that's all._ He found it difficult to believe again. After all they'd put him through… and they'd been lying. All along. He'd put his faith into them and they'd laughed as he fell from glory. _You were never glorious, Zim,_ it mocked him relentlessly. _You were a puppet, a plaything, and an irritating one at that. _He was no longer sure which voice was his own, only that he needed to make them stop.

He yelled at the communicator-disguised-as-a-television in frustration. He paused, heavily breathing, as he tried to sort his thoughts. The voice returned to his mind, provoking him until he finally threw a punch at the screen. It shattered under his strength, but his fist was coated in glass.

"Hey!" snapped his computer. "What're you doing to-" but it never got a chance to finish as Zim, blinded with fury, launched his spider legs into the ceiling; a calculated move to stop the computer. The metal arms pierced the computer's main power, leaving the room mostly in darkness. The backup generators operated at half power, supplying the irritated alien with a low light.

Still the voice forced him. _They hate you, they all do. You heard the laughter. The refusal to accept you. Even Invader Tenn-_

He growled and flipped the table in front of him into the wall with all of his Irken strength, super-human now he'd grown, and it left a hole in the wall between him and the kitchen. Using his strength like this felt fantastic. He'd grown so accustomed to acting human, feigning weakness, that this release of emotion, of power, felt fantastic.

With a sense of gleeful ferocity, he continued to smash things rampantly, tearing the couch with his reinforced claws, hitting the walls, slashing and throwing with his mechanical legs. However, as the fight drained out of him, he realized he still felt miserable and bitter. He dejectedly left his home with no mind to the little silver body jerking in the electrical remains of the television.

IZ-IZ-IZ-IZ

_Defective,_ she spat in her mind. _What right did that _punk_ think he had-calling me- _

"Agh!" she vented to the empty streets, throwing her voice across the cloudy sky in pent-up anger. A blast of wind matching her emotions drove a section of her violet hair into her eyes and she shoved it back behind her ear impatiently.

"Defective, because I wouldn't date him…" she hissed venomously, eyes flashing dangerously. "Like I'd touch him with a ten foot pole…"

Clark Davis was new. Clark Davis was also rather stupid, in Gaz's opinion. Clark Davis had been the starting quarterback at his last school, with slightly-less-than-average-grades, and a tremendously-above-average girlfriend. His father moved to their city, he'd followed. Gaz wasn't sure what sort of torture he was enduring now, but it was surely horrible.

-_Flashback-_

There was trouble stirring for her. She could sense it in the air, in the whispers of the table on the other side of the lunchroom. The _popular_ table. Something was happening.

She gazed intently at the fair-haired child approaching her table as Dib, seated on her left, mentioned something about his haunted gummy bear collection. She 'hmm'ed in a sort-of response to keep him happy.

The boy could have been considered handsome, she supposed, if she'd been able to relate to that sort of thing. As it was, she noted his features for future reference. Strong nose and jawline, thin lips, and blue-ish eyes. She still appeared to be playing her game.

"Hey, there," he said, leaning one hand casually on their table. Gaz continued to play her GameSlave, but watched in case this kid started something with her brother. They always started something with him.

To her credit, she showed none of her surprise when she was tapped on her shoulder and the kid started talking to her. "Hey," he tried again, his former smirk less evident. She spared him a glance before returning to her game. She would not let him bother her.

He frowned now, clearly wondering where _she_ got off being rude to _him_. "Hey! It's rude to ignore someone talking to you!" he demanded, shoving the top of her GameSlave down. She'd been _this_ close to defeating the piggy-lord.

Gritting her teeth loudly and shaking slightly, she slowly turned her head to face this _insolent_ human. Her eyes cracked open a bit, and they were flinty with wrath. He blinked in shock but was apparently either very brave or else very stupid because he pushed on. "You're Gaz, right?" he asked, and continued without waiting for an answer. "'Cause, I've got it on good opinion that you're all alone over here," Dib interrupted with an indignant "Hey!" but Clark ignored him, "and I thought I'd join you." He flashed what was probably supposed to be a winning smile, but Gaz saw pity and humor beneath his eyes and instantly sensed something off about the action.

"Well, yes, I am all alone," she 'admitted' with false sweetness, obviously straining to sound like any of the 'popular' girls would, "and would you like to know why?" she sing-songed. He leaned forward eagerly, thinking he was conquering her with his charms. "Because…" here she leaned forward and lowered her voice, "I am a demon like you've never met." Suddenly all the air seemed to leave the room and the chatter became muffled. Her voice was soothing, trance-inducing.

"I will hunt you down, and rest assured, it will be a hunt, with you trembling in the trees of a foreign country and only me as your adversary. And I will find you. And when I do, you will beg for mercy. You will plead with me to end your pitiable existence, and I will not comply with your threats and tears and begging until your soul is broken beyond pain. Then, I may hunt down anything you find precious, leaving you for days with no food and water. I will return with whatever you deem worthy of love and torture you with that before killing you as slowly as possible. As you bleed out, you'll wonder how this happened, how you got here- and then you'll realize." Here she paused to look at his ashen face, the cocky smirk having long since fallen, "It was only a nightmare."

She'd not once raised her voice above a slow, calm murmur, speaking softly to him, making it intimate. As if they were alone. Then she jerked her head back, tossing him back into the real world with a start. Suddenly he could hear the conversations, the laughter, of the students around him, and he remembered where and who he was.

"W- What the fuck's _wrong_ with you?" he nearly yelled, causing nearby tables to pause and shift their attention to him curiously. He was pointing a shaky finger at the Goth girl, quietly playing her game as if she'd said nothing. She did not react to his terror.

Everyone in the cafeteria was staring at them now. "You- you _defective FREAK!"_ he shouted, all shaking and pointing and disbelief. Here she froze for a long moment before swallowing thickly with thinly veiled fury. Another pause. She gently, tenderly, placed her GameSlave down. As slowly, she stood.

The entire cafeteria was riveted in horror. They knew well what he'd brought on himself. She lifted her chin from its' usual position on her chest to point coldly at him. Still he shook, but only in anger, not yet in fear.

"What did you say?" she asked in a hushed murmur, and yet her voice carried and everyone heard her. "I called you a defective freak!" he almost shouted, and his loud voice was discordant with the silence of the room in an appalling way, grating on the nerves of everyone in the room. She nodded slightly, as if agreeing with something she'd thought, then looked back at him.

Without glancing at him, she placed her right hand on her brother's forehead and he fell into a daze before he had a chance to say anything. His dark head remained upright as she breathed in sharply through her nose, drawing her hand back in a harsh ripping movement, although she held nothing.

All was still. Nothing happened. The lunchroom held its' breath. Then there was a murmur. No one in the cafeteria had made it. It steadily grew louder as Dib's forehead opened up to reveal his 'world'. Gasps of terror echoed in the room, but still, they were unable to look away from the terrible spectacle. The noise grew louder, and the tearing of Reality and Time was an unspeakable shrieking.

Trembling in unabashed terror against a table he'd backed into, Davis turned to run but the crack shot after him, it's dark, gaping maw tearing wider by the second. It swallowed his screeching form before releasing a pulse, dark and rhythmic, beating in time with her heart. Then Dib's head collapsed, hitting the table just to the left of the potatoes. The chatter in the room continued as it had before, no one noticing the child that never was. Clark Davis had never existed.

Scowling, Gaz resumed her game, starting from her last save point.

_-Flash forward-_

She snorted distastefully, remembering the pitiful terror emblazoned on his face. _She'd_ never have fallen so low as to pick on someone who, for all she knew, couldn't fight back. (Of course, she _could_ fight back, but he hadn't known that.)

She was turning down a street, one she'd not been down before, when a curious sight drew her attention. Zim was standing in the street, shaking, obviously furious. His disguise was nonexistent, and his ruby eyes glowed in the dim downpour. Mildly curious, she wandered over to him.

"Zim," she stated. He looked doubtfully sideways at her; seeming unsure as to if she was actually there or not. "Dib-sister," he returned.

They stood there a moment, neither really acknowledging the other, until Gaz gestured at him. "Where're your contacts?" she asked indifferently, because his answer really didn't impact her life.

"What difference does it make?" Zim bit out, suddenly reminded of why he had been so vehemently furious in the first place. She glanced at him, up and down, sizing him up, before saying, "It doesn't. Do you want to tell me or not?" Her blunt manner surprised him, but he showed none of it. "No, I don't, and especially not to a hy-uman like you," he snarled, his grade school slip-up making a reappearance. "Oh, so high and mighty, are we?" she asked sardonically, "telling me all about your all-powerful alien race. What changed?" He took her points in stride, following flawlessly with a rebuttal. "I'm merely a human, the same as all the others. I said I would not tell a human like_ you._"

Here he opened himself for a match of strength.

Growling furiously, she leaped onto the green boy and began to pummel him mercilessly. She got in no undefended hits; due to his tough Irken training, he was the best fighter in this battle. Coupled with his superior strength and general fury at his situation, he quickly had her on the ground, holding her arm behind her back and digging his knee into her back. "Don't start something you can't finish," he hissed smugly.

"Let me _go_, Zim," she warned through her teeth, her fury whipping the wind around them. With a satisfied 'hmph,' Zim released the Gothic girl and they climbed to their feet. "Where'd you learn to fight like that?" he begrudgingly asked, somewhat impressed by her resistance of him. "Trained in _pinyin_ for a bit. Liked it," she shrugged. He looked mildly fascinated.

"What is this _pinyin_?" he inquired, staring at her intently. Gaz glanced at him, surprised at his sudden shift from hostile to curious. "Martial arts," she revealed finally, but he only gave her a blank look. "Martial arts?" she questioned. "Boxing? Fighting?" she continued, but his face remained devoid of any revelations. She glared at him. "You've never seen _Hero? Exiled? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?_" she questioned disbelievingly. He shook his head. "These movies sound violent," he observed, and Gaz grinned. "Oh, they are," she agreed, shaking her head. "And you've never seen them."

"I think I should like to," Zim mused aloud, and immediately straightened up. "Let us go to your house, then, and view these... Martial arts movies," he commanded, dragging Gaz by hand behind him in the direction of his rival's house. Mildly irritated, Gaz wrapped her hand around his and applied pressure to what felt like a pressure point and was not disappointed. Zim yanked his hand from hers and glared. "Don't drag me places," she snarled, leading the way to her house.

Zim followed, slightly bemused.

IZ-IZ-IZ-IZ

Thanks to anyone reading this. My apologies to anyone reading before the update; sometimes I get distracted. For a very long time. Yes, well, chapter two may be up soon.


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